


Blood and Tears

by SilverFliesInBlueSugar



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, Donald Duck Needs a Hug, Gen, Misunderstandings, Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:55:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27587092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverFliesInBlueSugar/pseuds/SilverFliesInBlueSugar
Summary: Donald Duck might have abitof an inferiority complex. But it's fine, he has a way to get the affection he craves from his family....It may not be the healthiest one, though.
Relationships: Della Duck & Donald Duck, Della Duck & Donald Duck & Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck & Scrooge McDuck
Comments: 11
Kudos: 182





	Blood and Tears

**Author's Note:**

> do i tag this self harm? I honestly can't tell
> 
> also, written before watching the newest ep, so if the characterization is wrong that's why

Della is Scrooge's favourite.

This comes as obvious to Donald, expected, and yet it still hurts a little as it always does. He's not old enough to simply internalize how inferior he is to his sibling and ignore it yet, instead it's raw and biting and at the forefront of his mind as he watches their uncle ruffle his sister's hair with uncommon affection as they bustle about the foyer, babbling endlessly about the adventure they had just returned from.

Della is Scrooge's favourite, which makes Donald his least favourite. And he's always been so; the least favourite of their parents (thinking of them still makes his throat close up painfully), of their teachers, of their friends (well, he _calls_ them 'their' friends. Realistically, he knows they only stuck around for Della) and... well, the list continues. And Donald is _fine_ with that, he _is_ , he _swears_ he is, but he wipes away tears as he sits alone in his bedroom, quietly tuning his guitar as his sister runs about doing something that's probably much more interesting.

He slips up, on their next adventure. But it's not one of his classic 'Donald fuck-ups' where he just gets a few bruises from being too slow or something, it's serious and bad and he's pretty sure his leg isn't supposed to bend that way. Past the agony he can hear his uncle's shocked shout and Della's calls of concern, and before his vision blacks out he feels warm arms encompass him.

He wakes up at the manor, with his sister snuggled up next to him and his leg in a cast, and watches his uncle bustle about, apologizing in his own roundabout way for letting his nephew become injured, sees the way Scrooge's face lights up with tight concern as his leg smarts and he swears, and a sick feeling curdles in his stomach.

They care about him right now.

Is it awful that he wants to stay injured forever?

But, of course, inevitably it heals. And Scrooge goes back to hardly speaking to him outside of adventures, and Della returns to her mini play adventures and cartography, and even their butler returns to his complete indifference. He'd actually seemed concerned when Donald was hurt. Now, the boy was almost convinced he hated him.

He misses the feeling so much, so bad, so painfully, that only a few months later it overwhelms him. He tells himself that it's fine, no one has to know it was on purpose, it's just his clumsiness acting up again, and besides it's been a few adventures since that particular one, so they have no reason to suspect it's anything more than misfortune.

But if it'll get them to _care..._

So he purposely mistimes his step getting through a trap in some temple or other Scrooge had been prattling on and on about for days, and staggers as a spear gets him in the side. The familiar black splotches fill his vision as his hand goes to his side and comes away completely dyed crimson, and all he can think before he crumples is _good._

He wakes up swaddled in bandages, and with Scrooge's concerned eyes and Della's hugs, and once again never wants the injury to leave. Sure, sitting up is hell and so is breathing sometimes, but... fuck. He forgot how it felt to get validation that people cared.

It comes across him that he might not need to risk his life for this, and purposely cuts himself when helping their butler make dinner. The man once again gives him that flash of seeming worry, running his hand under the tap and insisting sharply that he'd be better off still recuperating in his room.

It's like a drug. It's so easy. He needs more.

He trips going down the stairs to aggravate his wound. He gets his hand slammed in a door. He walks into the wall whilst 'distracted' and drops like a stone to grab at his head.

It wears off. Scrooge and Della begin to accept his minor self-injuries as a new - not entirely appreciated but not entirely bothersome - trait of his. Della no longer blinks when he grabs a hot plate with his bare hands, or picks up glass and slices his fingers open, or anything else. She laughs, and calls him 'clumsy old Donald', and no amount of theatrics will convince her to care.

(They do just become a trait of his after a while. He's not sure when the intentional injuries become unintentional, but blames it on his bad luck getting worse. He's always had the worst luck, and no one knew why. Della too, but she knew how to use hers.)

It's 6 months after the 'spear incident', as they all dub it now, and he's 13 with nothing to show for it.

The empty feeling persists, like a tumour.

He has a hunting knife that Della gifted him for their birthday. He'd given her a compass. Scrooge gave her a grappling hook, and him nothing, citing that he just didn't know what the boy would want. Donald bit back the reply of 'well maybe if you tried to know what i liked, or tried to know me at all' and nodded and let his fingers curl and uncurl over the handle of the blade.

He stabs himself in the arm, and punches himself, and claims he was mugged. 

And the concern is back, and so is the warm happy fluttering in his chest, even as a dark guilt eternally accompanies it.

He stammers the truth to Della one day, when the guilt overpowers him. And she laughs, and tells him that she can't understand his voice when he speaks that quickly and quietly, and skips off.

But they start to get used to this now too, because he breaks a bone in his arm when he 'forgets' how to fall the right way, and Scrooge just sighs, looking more exasperated than worried. Della groans, calls him stupid and lame, and ruffles his hair half-heartedly. And then he's alone with his injury.

So this isn't good enough anymore, either. What now?

What he doesn't see is the look of suspicious concern from Della when he turns his back. What he doesn't hear is Scrooge quietly asking Duckworth if he had noticed... an unusual uptick in Donald's injuries over this past year, the old miser's jaw clenched as he mulled over the disturbing fact.

Because even if it had become the norm, it still scared him when Donald screamed. It still scared him to see blood on either of his ki- wards. And it absolutely terrified him when his nephew blacked out and had to spend several days bedridden from bloodloss or otherwise. He might never show it on his face, but this fear was unique and profound; that he might fail his sister's wishes to protect her children at all costs. 

Donald tried, in one last ditch attempt, to elicit concern.

He could see the trap. It wasn't too expertly concealed, all things considered, and if his guess was accurate it would probably puncture him with an arrow or more. So long as he protected his neck...

So he stepped toward the tripwire, only to be yanked back forcefully by the cuff of his shirt the moment his foot triggered it.

The arrows shoot through where he had just been, glinting with malice and some strange liquid, embedding themselves in the far wall. Had he stayed still, that might have been too much for even him. For once, he might've bled out for real.

Ignoring the cruel part of him that whispered that at least his family might spare enough to give half a flying fuck at his funeral at least, he turned to see who had grabbed him.

Scrooge's eyes were flaming with rage and something else as he dragged the two of them back home. There was a cold silence, and even Della knew not to ask what had happened when she hadn't been looking. Not yet.

The moment the door to the manor closed, their uncle exploded.

Donald doesn't hear much beyond 'WHAT IN BLAZES WERE YE THINKING', the rest becoming a blur of noise as he stares down at the floor, angry, feeling as though all of his injuries are burning beneath his flannel, all in various states of healing. 

"I just wanted you to care!" He snaps, and when Scrooge pauses and asks him to repeat himself, he almost has a complete meltdown because this is the WORST time for his voice to not be understood, because he is NOT repeating himself, but it seems to catch up to his uncle and his face crumples. He asks him what he means.

And it's all flooding out now, the miserable isolation he feels, has always felt, and he KNOWS it's not part of his godamn not-a-phase, because he's felt like this ever since he was a toddler, he can't ever not feel like it, and it's not like it isn't true. And that it's FINE if Scrooge and Della can't care about him the same way they do about each other (it isn't, the mere idea hurts), because he's used to it and it's whatever, but he just wanted them to show him that they cared AT ALL! And if it took a spear to the side for Della to sit at the end of his bed and just talk to him for ages or for Scrooge to muss his hair and call him lad, then fuck it, it was worth it!

By the time he's done, he's rendered them entirely speechless. Scrooge has never looked so stunned in his life, not even when facing up against the worst of foes, and even Della has tensed up next to him, covering her mouth with her hands before she shakes her head violently and tackle-hugs him.

"You IDIOT!" she snaps, and he jerks at her anger, unused to it. But she's crying too, he realizes, and guilt opens like a pit in his stomach. "Of course i care about you! You're my BROTHER!"

"But-"

"I know I'm always busy off doing my own thing and we don't talk that much outside of adventures, not after-" she winces, and he knows she's thinking of their parents. He winces too. "But i still love you, you didn't need to break your bones to find that out, you IDIOT!"

For once, being called an idiot doesn't feel that bad. Because despite the horrid circumstances, this is what he wanted all along, wasn't it? Validation.

It's hard to believe, but as he is right now, he clings violently to the hope that's swelled up in his chest.

And Scrooge sits down next to them, watches Della angry-cry, and does something so uncharacteristic it makes Donald flinch.

He _apologises._

The teen's mouth moves before his head, and he couldn't help but stammer out a bewildered but joking 'Scrooge McDuck saying sorry? Can we get that to the news?' and Della punches him in the arm, and the tension manages to lighten from choking to just uncomfortable. Scrooge doesn't let him just sweep it under the rug with jokes, though. Because he insists that he does love Donald as much as Della, and he's been a 'flaming dobber' if that hasn't come across. If it's seemed like he has any preference. And that of course Donald didn't need to get himself greviously injured to catch his attention, because damnit if there was one thing he wanted to do, it was honour his late sister by taking care of her children.

The next morning, Della is bouncing up and down at the end of his bed to wake him up, and gives him an aggressive, winding hug before running out to do what she does. And it's simple, and small, but it helps. Because he smiles that entire morning, chest warm as he practices his guitar with more enthusiasm than before. And for once, it's a hopeful tune, not a sad one.

Scrooge takes him down to the harbour a few times, knowing the boy's fascination with the sea, and he's never felt safer than he does sat by the edge of the water, watching it recede and approach, kicking up a spray. For his next birthday, Scrooge buys him a model boat and a set of guitar picks.

Duckworth seemed surprised when he admitted that he thought the man disliked him, and told him sharply that he simply wasn't good with children. He saw nothing wrong with Donald in particular, and actually preferred his quiet grumbling to Della's exuberant yells and glides down the staircase banisters. 

The next time he becomes injured, it's completely accidental.


End file.
